you should better approve my pics from 3 weeks ago:)

steve-oh:

As you stated, many contributors have voiced their concerns about subscription sales (time and time again).  Royalties would be cut in half when a Small image sells under a subscription package ($0.50 vs. $0.25).  But royalties would be cut 20x when an XXL image sells under a subscription package ($5.00 vs $0.25).

I think that it would be more just if the size of the image was taken into account for a subscription.  For example, charge the equivalent of 1 download for a Small size, 2 downloads for a Medium size, 3 downloads for a Large size, etc.  This would result in a sliding scale for royalties: $0.25 for a Small size, $0.50 for a Medium size, $0.75 for a Large size, etc.

Both sides would win under this scenario.  Buyers would still get a drastic reduction in price, and contributors would get higher royalties for larger image sizes.

Hi stokfoto!

I understand your concerns. There may be some overlap. Some per download buyers may buy subscriptions, but I think it may be a small percentage and I think what you gain from subscription will outweigh this.

We get feedback to the site about offering subscriptions, and at the tradeshows I've attended people ask about subscription. When we say no we don't offer it, they go somewhere else. They don't just go PPD with us.

So I do believe it's mainly a separate customer base, which is why we also launched the DG opportunity. You will reach a different clientele looking for more exclusive imagery at a higher price point.

Like you said, we will have to wait and see. It's new for us too.

Thanks!
-Steve

Guys,

to address your concerns about your XL and XXL files, our experience has been (with Photos.com and LiquidLibrary subscription offerings) that the most popular download size for subscribers is medium size. Very few download the larger file sizes.

-Steve

I'm so encouraged that yet another site values its own contributors enough to give away their body of work for nothing.

Stockmania,

Good suggestion, and I will pass it on, but I think if we are to offer subscriptions, we need to offer a service that competes with the other microsites.

Do any of the other microsites have size limits on their subscription offering?

Do many of you not contribute to the other stock sites that offer subscriptions?

Thanks!
-Steve

My earnings have gone up a lot since dreamstime introduced subscriptions, so I don't think this will reduce my overall earnings.

The earnings went up since DT introduced subscription not because of the subscriptions but because they gave a substantial price increase and introduced a tier system at the same time.  I'm convinced that if they hadn't done that the earnings would have gone down

Do any of the other microsites have size limits on their subscription offering?
Thanks!
-Steve

Many experienced stockers have recommended to downsample to 4 or 5 mp for SS because they are loath to give their XL files away for such low return.

The wild price differences in this industry don't sit well with me.   LO sells the largest/original file size for $50 and they give me $25.   Now, stop laughing.  I know a lot of us are discouraged that LO has failed to take off, but I HAVE and many others have sold XL's there.  It just doesn't seem right selling that same image for the $ or whatever the purchaser will pay you on subscription.

StockManiac, I find your comments about a microstock union very interesting. Have you seen what's been happening in the macrostock market in the last two months? Getty Images offered a $49 web-use license and the industry went into uproar. The interesting part is that all the photographer representatives, in the form of industry associations, have been the ones "making submissions" to Getty and "writing letters" - the exact "organization" you're referring to.

Now, I don't agree with you about unions, but you've really got me thinking. The disorganization is what made microstock possible. If microstock had been geared toward professional photographers instead of hobbyists it would never have succeeded. Can you imagine professional photographers earning hundreds of dollars per sale accepting a deal to earn 25cents? The disorganization was the open market - digital camera and Internet enabled "mom n' pop" contributors - no professional photographer associations, no unions, not even industry conventions.

Getting back on to the issue of StockXpert and their subscription, they're a commercial organization offering you an opportunity. If you don't like it you can simply decline, as others have suggested. Voting with your dollars (in this case your photos) is more powerful than any union. And this way it's organic - if StockXpert contributors aren't earning sufficient royalties, they'll take their business elsewhere and StockXpert will have to re-assess or close their doors. If, however, it turns out like they predict, then their contributors will be better off and they'll continue to flourish.

In short, I don't care how much margin a microstock agency makes on their sales. I care about how much money they give me at the end of the month relative to my portfolio size. StockXpert can give me a 1% commission if they like. At the end of the month I'll look at my earnings to decide whether they're worthwhile, not at my portion.

That being said, I'd love to see you or someone else setup a microstock contributor's union. I wouldn't join, but it'd be fun to watch.

Getting back on to the issue of StockXpert and their subscription, they're a commercial organization offering you an opportunity. If you don't like it you can simply decline, as others have suggested.

Well, that's not correct.  You can't simply decline because there is no "opt out".  An opt out feature is exactly what everyone is asking for.  Even better would be an opt in feature.  But the microstock sites refuse to even humor us with the thought.

At this point, the only thing that you could do is stop doing business with them.  In other words you would have to remove all of your images.  But some microstock sites (e.g., DT) won't even let you remove your own images because you agreed to leave your images on their site for a certain amount of time (6 months in DT's case).

If this were a new microstock site that was starting up and they made this announcement, they would be laughed off of this forum.  But the problem is that most of us already have an investment in this site.  Most of us have spent hours and hours of time editing, keywording, and uploaded 100s or 1000s of images with the promise that we would get a payback for our efforts over the years.

Finally, we uploaded the images under a previous contract.  It just isn't fair to have the old contract pulled out from under you and a new contract implemented without your consent.

There have been many discussions about the lifetime of an image on this and other forums.  Most people agree that a generic image (that is not fashion or technology oriented) should have a lifetime of at least 5 or 10 years.  After all, a picture of an apple is a picture of an apple.  But now it seems like the problem is not the lifetime of the image, but the lifetime of the contract that you agreed to.  Contracts don't even seem to last a year in this environment.  They are constantly changing the contract behind our backs without even asking us for comments.  This is a classic example of bait and switch.  They bait us in with enticements (such as higher royalties) and then once they establish themselves, they switch out the original contract with a newer contract that benefits only themselves.

It seems that StockXpert is becoming the latest victim of their own success.

Last week their Annual Contest turned into a joke and now this.

steve-oh:

If StockXpert really cares about its contributors, then "show us the money".  Here are some suggestions:

- Allow us to opt-out or opt-in of subscriptions

- Only allow subscriptions sales on smaller image sizes

- Have a sliding royalty scale for subscription royalties based on the size of the image (0.25 for small, 0.50 for medium, etc)

- Give contributors a 0.35 royalty for subscriptions.

I'm sure that there are other options out there as well.

But to come out with a royalty plan that is the lowest in the industry is simply not acceptable.

It seems to me that StockXpert have done everything pretty well so far - given the size of their library, they appear to have a very high customer/image ratio (far higher than say DT or BigStock) and I get encouraging results.

StockXpert were also not tempted to build the library with any old rubbish; they've been selective right from the start, and this builds confidence in customers.  They have a tightly run contributor list of only 3,400 photographers, compared to 17,000 at DT and 36,000 at IS.

Also, through Steve, StockXpert have tried to give good communication - how often do we see anyone in authority from FT or BigStock posting here?

Now Steve says that StockXpert's reseach shows that subscriptions will INCREASE the customer base, resulting in increased sales for us all.  Given what I've seen so far, I am inclined to trust StockXpert's judgement, unless and until proven otherwise.  I don't think this is a way to 'screw' photographers at all - StockXpert will need to run the subscription model in an efficient way in order for it to make profits, and that means it will need volumes of customers to dilute maximum download risk.

However I agree that 25c is disappointing and will need to be higher if StockXpert wants to use this to attract quality images.

The fixed subscription scheme is what kept me away from SS from the start.  I tolerate it in DT while it is a small percentage of my sales (about 10-15% of my dlds).  I'm still trying to see how CS, CanStockPhoto and 123RF develop, but I haven't uploaded anything to CS in months because I almost only gets subs sales there.

It may be arrogance from my part, but I simply do not agree that people may buy images so cheap (and we earn so little with them), no matter if there are many sales to make a good total earning.  It is just against my nature to devalue photography so much.

Regards,
Adelaide